Beneteau Factory Visit and Nantes

The Radisson Blu hotel in Nantes was quite lovely at night, illuminated:

This is the hotel lobby:

This is the room where breakfast was served:

Our Beneteau driver, Ary, picked us up around 8:30 a.m. It was a memorable drive through Nantes at rush hour,with the large number of commuter bicyclists on the road. After about an hour, we arrived at this office building in Saint Gilles Croix de Vie (croix = cross, de Vie = the Vie River):

Here was our welcoming committee: Gildas Rehel, our tour guide; Ary, our driver; and Nathalie Ory, who set up our tour for us, and with whom I communicated:

Gildas gave us a short video presentation:

Then he drove us a short distance to the actual factory. They were flying the American flag for us that day:

We were not able to take any photographs inside the factory, but we saw them creating the fiberglass hulls 3 different ways. Then Gildas took us to lunch at a fantastic restaurant on the beach, Le Grain de Sable (the grain of sand). It was an outstanding lunch, with tomato soup and Fish of the Day. I would vote it best meal of the trip.

There was a very nice nautical shop that I would love to revisit for rain gear in this shopping district:

After Ary returned us to our hotel, Brock celebrated with his birthday gifts:

We had dinner at La Cigale in Nantes, a very interesting restaurant:

We had escargot and I ordered Scallops. They were quite small. It was not the best meal of the trip.

La Cigale was across trom the Opera House, which appeared quite dramatic at night:

Brock struck a birthday pose in front of our hotel:

We had a successful, short visit to Nantes.